Thursday, November 6, 2014

Blood On Our Hands

Since the day Jesus Christ gave the Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20, Mark 16:14-20, Luke 24:45-53, John 20:21-23, Acts 1:4-9), a mandate to His disciples; every generation of disciples has had a certain amount of blood on their hands ( Ezekiel 3:17-21, ch. 33,  Acts 20:25-27) of people they should have witnessed to, souls that were and are our (the Church's) responsibility to evangelize; but instead we either ignored them, or criticized them, or we were deceived into believing that they weren't worth the trouble.

The Lord of the Harvest will hold us accountable.

He will hold all of us accountable, especially the leaders in the Church.  We will be held accountable based upon the amount of revelation and knowledge we receive, as well as the particular calling/gifting(s) we are given. God will judge us by our works, by how we use and act upon the stewardship entrusted to us.

This generation needs to get up and into the fields. Our Father created us to work (Genesis 1:15), His business is the ministry of reconciliation, it is a privately owned family business in which we have been adopted into.

Will you daily and intentionally join in God's plan? The ministry of reconciliation is where our Father is redeeming creation through His Son, who shed His blood and purchased all the peoples and families of the earth as his inheritance and the ends of the earth as His possession (see Psalm 22:27, Psalm 2:8, Acts 20:28, Revelation 5:9).

Church, there is blood on our hands today.

In the 10/40 window, which is a geographical area that spans from Senegal and Morocco, to Vietnam and Japan; there are an estimated 50,000 people who daily die in Adam, " For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22 NKJV). God has an elect from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.  It is our job to go to them, to bear witness of Jesus Christ's everlasting Kingdom, where all of redeemed creation will be reunited with our Father. This is our responsibility, it is our divine mandate which has been mediated to us by God, and only through the power and work of the Holy Spirit can this great task be completed.

"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come."  (Matt. 24:14 NKJV)

"And the gospel must first be published among all nations." (Mark 13:10 KJV)

The end will come, and we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ ( see Romans 14:10, 1 Corinthians 5:10).

The Lord has declared, and is declaring:

"Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done." Revelation 22:12 NASB


What will be on your hands on Judgment Day?


What will the Lord say to you on that day?





Monday, July 14, 2014

The Mystery of Prayer



When seeking to know the Will of God we should look to the Holy Scriptures.

A common struggle for followers of Christ is to, as one might say, “know God’s will for my life”. To end such frustration we must see that God’s Will, and His will for our life are intrinsically united. That being said, we are also given a great privilege as Children of God… that of being co-laborers with God  and Christ (1 Corinthians 3:9; 6:1). When we are brought to life through Christ by grace through faith, and through the deep wet furrows of Baptism, we are then taken to the fields of the family business. Our Father has given all things into His Son’s hand, and we are given a mandate in the Great Commission to labor for souls, because “The harvest is ripe, but the laborers are few” (Luke 10:2). A key component of our Father’s business, through His Son’s Bride, is prayer. Our greatest example of a vibrant prayer life, and who we are to imitate, is Jesus Christ, who while on earth demonstrated a heart and lifestyle of prayer and commanded His disciples that “… they ought to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1b).
After the glorious Resurrection of our Lord, when He ascended into Heaven, Jesus Christ did not cease from praying. The book of Hebrews makes this clear.
Right now Christ is at the right hand of the Father interceding, praying, for the Church, and fallen Mankind… because God desires that none should perish but all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9); that all would be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4 NKJV).

That answers God's desire to see fallen Mankind redeemed, but what about God’s will for us, the already redeemed Church?

1 Thessalonians says:
"Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification…" 1 Thessalonians 4:1-3a NKJV

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NKJV

In conclusion, we see that prayer is the sacrament/holy mystery where we interact with the will of God and commune in the Spirit. Why would i call prayer a “sacrament”? Because, all sacraments are where eternity and finality (Heaven and Earth) meet; where God's grace is mediated in a simultaneously Spiritual and physical expression. 
Therefore prayer – which requires intention and action to manifest the Kingdom of Heaven in tangible ways – is not only a sacrament, but one in which we can all participate in continually in our hearts.

God's Will is also that of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. We are to love God first with everything we are, and then love everybody else as if they are our self. We are to make disciples of all nations (ethnos in Greekwhich means peoples, not civil states). Through devotion to God we inevitably love His creation, especially those made in His image. From this place of prayerful devotion we will walk in the Spirit, abiding in Christ, and will make disciples of all "peoples", because it is God's Will that we do so.

Let us thus pray with diligence and joy of the Holy Spirit, as we labor with our beloved Savior and King who shall return bodily for us, His Bride, to the glory of the Father. Amen

We have eternal glories that await us!

Praise be unto our Creator and Redeemer who by His own blood purchased a People from all peoples to be gathered together to worship forever in a Kingdom of grace and truth! Amen.

Our Father who art in Heaven hollowed be thy name. 

Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, in Earth as it is in Heaven. 

Give us this day our daily bread. 

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 

And Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 

For Thine be the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. 

Amen." 

Matthew 6:9b-13 

(combination of NKJV and KJV)


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